Stop Persecution of Homosexuals in
Chechnya!

Down with anti-gay chauvinism, lynching’s and Russian imperialism! For a free, red Chechnya!

By Johannes Moraga,Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 14 April 2017,www.thecommunists.net

Homosexuality in Chechnya

The Kadyrov-regime, who is no more than a tame dog of Putin whose purpose is to sell the Russian occupation of Chechnya to the heroic Chechen masses, cracked
down on the rights of homosexuals.

Homosexuality which was first made illegal in Chechnya by the Russian conquest in 1800 was legalized after the formation of the Soviet Union and its expansion
to Chechnya's soil. It was later criminalized by Stalin.

The Stalin regime oppressed the whole working class and the poor peasants as well as all national minorities. It was also a vicious enemy of the Chechen people
who suffered mass killings and deportation in 1944. This dictatorship was also an enemy of genuine revolutionary communism and as a result it killed several hundreds of thousands of honest
revolutionaries – real Trotskyists or supposed ones – as well as of Trotsky himself.

Trotsky and his supporters in the Fourth International always fought for the consistent national liberation of the peoples of the Caucasus and of Central Asia.
He stood for revolutionary internationalism and for the equality of all peoples and against Russian chauvinism.

The crackdown

Putin’s dog Kadyrov has already encouraged the lynching of LGBT people “You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” his
spokesman said. “If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them since their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.”(1)

Now Kadyrov’s soldiers are now starting to systematically round up gay men and put them in what LGBT-activists in Russia call a concentration camp. More than
100 men ranging from 16 years to 50 years (2) have disappeared all over Chechnya, some of them might have been killed. There are numerous report about those men being tortured with electro-shocks
and beatings to name other members of the gay community. (3)

Authentic revolutionaries fight against all types of oppression, because they are linked together and cannot be ended separately. This is true for the
oppression of homosexuals as well as for the national oppression of the Chechen people as well as of the religious discrimination of Muslims in Russia and Europe and the exploitation of the
workers and poor.

How to fight?

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) unconditionally defends the persecuted gay Chechens. Likewise, we fully support the liberation
struggle of the Chechen people! (4) We have always stood with the Chechen people against Russian aggression. (5)

Kadyrov’s soldiers, who are dogs that keep the Chechen wolf on the ground, help Russian imperialism by trying to draw attention away from the real issue – the
Russian occupation and the economic misery of the Chechen workers and farmers! (6)

A fellow working-college once told me, and that is what we need to tell all those supposed proud “Chechen” soldiers of Kadyrov: “A real man doesn’t
beat those who are weak, he fights those who are powerful!”

Putin’s imperialist Russia – and with its puppet regime of Kadyrov – is in a crisis. They need to throw sand in the eyes of the workers and poor so that they
cannot see the real enemy, which are the rich and powerful. They want to direct the popular anger against the most vulnerable groups which are the homosexuals in Chechnya and the homosexuals and
the Muslims in Russia!

We need to oppose this chauvinist plague, by showing the masses of the people that only solidarity, especially with the poorest and most oppressed people, will
liberate all of us! The liberation of Chechnya will not be successful if it is not led by the workers and the poor peasants, it will not be successful as long as it doesn’t break with patriarchal
prejudices and “honor killings” (which are in fact lynching’s of the most oppressed sectors of our class) and puts women, young people and homosexuals as equals in the liberation struggle. This
doesn’t mean a break with Chechen culture and tradition because the best elements of it will prevail and be mixed with the best ideas of humanism and socialism!

Down with the persecution of LGBT-people!

Down with Russian imperialism and its dog Kadyrov!

Support the liberation struggle of the Chechen people! For a free and red Chechnya!